Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

Denna uppsats behandlar människans frälsning ur en kristet pluralistisk synpunkt med fokus på teologerna John Hick, Paul Knitter och Jacques Dupuis SJ och deras texter kring pluralism och människans frälsning. Frågorna som präglat uppsatsen är om man kan vara kristen och pluralist när det handlar om människans frälsning och om den kristna tro som man då beskriver är att räkna som autentiskt kristen. Analysverktyg har hämtats från teologerna Carl-Henric Grenholm, Mattias Martinsson, Thomas Ekstrand samt Mikael Stenmark. Uppsatsens resultatdel landar i att John Hick och Paul Knitters teologier inte är att beskriva som autentiskt kristna för att de konstruerar en ny kristen frälsningslära. Jacques Dupuis SJ upphör att vara av pluralistisk övertygelse för att behålla det som är att definiera som autentiskt kristet gällande människans frälsning, särskilt gällande Jesu Kristi korsdöd.

The subject of this essay is the concept of omnisubjectivity, which is a form of omniscience introduced by Linda Zagzebski. I will analyse the concept in detail, its possible implications, objections and further developments and critically examine these.      Omnisubjectivity is the idea that God has constant access to our consciousness and all our mental states and that God can grasp all conscious creatures’ first-person perspectives at the same time as God has his own first- and third-person perspective. As a model for this Zagzebski uses human empathy, where she means that God has perfect total empathy which implies that God has constant access to all our mental states at the same time as God never forgets that those mental states aren’t God’s own.      Some of the possible implications that I bring up in this essay are that omnisubjectivity can explain how God hears prayers, how God’s love and providence can deepen, how God might or might not be affected by humans’ mental states, especially their failings and immoral actions and thoughts, and how God’s judgement can be perfectly fair. The objections concern Zagzebski’s use of empathy as a model for omnisubjectivity, the definition of perfection, God’s relation to time and what the first-person perspective contributes to. The developments concern Thomas Aquinas thought of God as everything’s first cause and christology.      This essay’s conclusion is that omnisubjectivity is, to a large extent, already a part of omniscience, but that it also contributes with new aspects and opens up for new questions and deepens the meaning of omniscience and God’s relation to his created creatures. 

This paper addresses affinities between Christian political theology and the Anarcho-primitivistcritique of civilization. It is argued that there is a significant constructive potential in such a critique, especially in relation to the current political and societal situation, and that the critique to a great extent is compatible with traditional Christianity. It is further argued that this constructive potential, while currently hampered, can be effectively unlocked in relation to a proper theological anchoring of Anarcho-primitivism. It is then maintained that such an anchoring could most plausiblybe provided by the Abrahamic traditions, and especially the Christian, due to the particular compatibility between Anarcho-primitivism and Christianity.

This dissertation's purpose is to test the hypothesis that beliefs in the possibility of post-mortem survival can be rationally held within the context of the contemporary scientific and philosophical environment. In terms of criteria of rationality, a basic evidentialism is assumed, such that propositions which are sufficiently supported by the available evidence can be rationally held. With regard to the compatibility with contemporary science and philosophy, it follows as a further criterion that the relevant evidence must be satisfactorily anchored within the framework of these traditions.

The relevant evidence concerns two levels. First, the basic level of the conceptual coherence of afterlife beliefs is addressed, so that the logical possibility of post-mortem survival can be established. Secondly, the viability of the metaphysics which are implied in the support of the logical possibility (i.e. the metaphysics needed to actualize post-mortem survival) is defended, establishing the metaphysical possibility of post-mortem survival. At this stage, reductive physicalism, which is the only position that effectively undermines post-mortem survival, is criticized, and the problem of interaction which burdens several of the survival-enabling ontologies is addressed.

As for the criterion of scientific compatibility, it is further shown that contemporary physics are compatible with the survival-enabling metaphysics, and that contemporary physics can be argued to provide a moderate positive relevance with regard to these positions.

The conclusion drawn is that belief in the possibility of post-mortem survival is not only rationally permissible within the framework of contemporary science and philosophy, but also rationally obligatory, i.e. that this possibility cannot rationally be denied with regard to the reviewed evidence.

In this paper, a particular aspect of the Islamic notion of tawḥīd is described and explored with regard to its consequences for Islam’s relationship to secular society. It is argued that strains of Islam informed by the widespread, orthodox interpretation of this tawḥīd al ‘uluhiyya, or “the oneness of creation’s worship of God,” cannot be coherently harmonized with the notion of a secular, political order wherein religion and the public sphere are strictly separated. On this basis, it is then argued that inclusion of non-secular political Islam within the framework of liberal democracy is likely a preferable development in the interests of minimizing future international and domestic conflict, and supporting autonomous popular rule in Islamic states.

The redemptive function of science is a central facet of contemporary late-modern mythology, which due to the preeminent discursive hegemony of scientism generally goes more or less unexamined. A kind of redemptive scientism has popularly been acknowledged as simply real and unquestionably true, whereas neither the rationale nor the character of these narratives are sufficiently critically examined. Arguably, the trust in scientific redemption has waned in later years, which due to the narratives' dominant role risks engendering profound effects upon culture and society in general, yet these consequences are difficult to understand since we are insufficiently familiar with the myths that cause them. The purpose of this article is to exemplify the reproduction of such secular eschatologies within the framework of the futurology literature from a period which strongly affirmed and celebrated them. This will hopefully enable us to better understand their character, entrenchment, and ideological consequences, as well as what may follow from a developing rejection of them.

This article intends to provide an outline of the diversity of philosophical perspecives pertaining to artificial subjectivity, with special regard to non-Western approaches and their potential to contribute to the discussion. The premise is that the popular-scientific as well as academic debate on artificial subjectivity is somewhat narrow, with a bias towards reductionist and functionalist approaches. This prevents the inclusion of the plethora of perspectives inherent in the Western philosophical tradition, while also blocking potentially fruitful input from non-Western traditions. The outsider role of the latter perspectives in relation to the narratives of modern technological society has the clear potential to supplant them where they become myopic, and this overview provides several examples of possibly fruitful contributions. Of particular importance is their evident sensitivity to the political and cultural implications of technology, as well as a set of unique methodologies and approaches suited to uncovering and addressing problems pertaining to the interactions between technology, individuals and society.

This work attempts an answer to two questions. Firstly, is it possible to experience meaning when everything is transient? And secondly, in what way is objectivity possible when it comes to such phenomena as existential meaning? The questions originate from our insideperspective, and it is from what we have experienced ourselves that we try to make intelligible existential meaning. We are to a great extent part of the context in which we live. Our ability to contemplate our situation and our own contemplation is taking place in interplay with others. To make room for the small things meaningful in life, the expression existential meaning is used. In this expression both the meaningless and the meaningful are included, since both are needed for our understanding of meaning. Without the Other and that which is different, the individual person’s formation of existential meaning becomes just more of the same, it becomes an enclosure in the present. The encounter with the Other makes room for that which is different to break through.

Objectivity is possible when it comes to existential meaning, if one views objectivity as a process between people. It is performed in conversation. Those who converse, refer to their bodily experiences of the Time that remains and help each other, using language as the tool, to formulate their experiences. They compare each others’ manifestations of existential meaning,

and with the help of language they go further in the formation of what is meaningless and meaningful. Their conversations imply a normative presupposition that they can justify the claims that they make. Because it is actually not possible to make intelligible existential meaning in words other than by doing it as a mix of descriptions of that which is manifesting itself and linguistic rewritings in the form of stories. This expression of objectivity has a normative aspect, namely in relation to the possibility that we can be wrong. Therefore, we need each other in the act of judging, and together we are guided by the fact that it later on can emerge things that show that our judgment has not been fully correct.